Wood, Epstein on the trade

“I think it’s a great opportunity,” Wood said. “The Reds do have a lot of depth in their rotation. Hopefully, I can get to Chicago and make a difference. … I’m very comfortable. I like Wrigley Field and everything.”

Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein:

“Sean is not the type of pitcher that we set out looking to trade. He does a lot of things that we like, on the field and off the field. He’s exactly the kind of guy we want to be a Cub. But, he had one year remaining on his contract until free agency, and under the new collective bargaining rules it’s unlikely that he’ll have any Draft pick compensation attached to him. So rather than let him walk at the end of the year with essentially nothing in return, we felt turning him into a Major League starting pitcher who has five years of control was certainly worth doing, and obviously [we got] the two prospects on top of that.”

“There’s no doubt our bullpen just got weaker by losing Marshall — you can’t get around that,” Epstein said. “But I think our starting rotation just got stronger, and our farm system just got stronger. If Wood bounces back and he pitches the way he did in 2010, you can argue that maybe we even got better [for] 2012. Certainly, the future just got a little bit brighter.”

Epstein mentioned July 11, 2010, when Wood, making his third big league start, pitched eight perfect innings against Roy Halladay the Phillies. Cincinnati wound up losing that game in extra innings, 1-0.

“He caught the eye of a lot of people,” said Epstein, who was GM of the Red Sox then.

2 Comments

I felt this was an okay deal for the Reds…but that was BEFORE I found out Sappelt was part of the trade. I think most of us assumed that it was two low level minor leaguers thrown in from maybe A ball or the Rookie League…NOT the Triple A guy who tore up Spring Training last year and who is a bonafied hitter at any level and just possibly the leadoff guy the Reds have sought for years now. Does Walt think the Reds no longer need hitters?? He’d darn better well get Marshall to agree to a contract extension. If not, this is a bad deal.

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